paul on tea party politics and nor lindsey graham has vowed to hold up the hagel nomination. chris asked him about that in an exclusive interview. i'm shannon bream. captioned by closed captioning services, inc. >> chris: i'm chris wallace. senate republican ares block the president's choice to run the pentagon. as gop senators demand more answers about the benghazi terror attack, white house charges they are playing politics with national security. we talk with the man leading the call for more information, senator lindsey graham. his tee party response to the state of the union speech was critical to both the president and the gop. we will ask senator rand paul what he thinks of the obama agenda as well as republican policy. also, it is less than two weeks until big automatic spending cuts kick in. we will ask the sunday panel

will congress will reach a deal before the sequester deadline. and outraged our power player of the week helps the senate make history by keeping track of history. all right now on "fox news sunday." >> chris: and hello again from fox news in washington. senate republicans made history this week, blocking a nominee for defense is secretary for the first time ever. they are demanding more information about the nominee former senator chuck hagel and about the benghazi terror attack. joining me now one of the senators leading the charge, republican lindsey graham of south carolina. you were telling me before we went on the air that you have gotten new information about chuck hagel. what is it? >> on the day of the vote there was a blog posting about a speech i think in 2007 or 2008 that chuck hagel made at rutgers university and the blogger was a supporter of senator hagel who was thinking about running for president and he put on his blog the next day

6 points of the speech question and answer is session and point six was allegedly senator hagel said that the u.s. state department was an adjunct of the israeli foreign minister's office which i think would be breathtaking if he said that to have such a view. i got a letter back from senator hagel in response to my question did you say that and do you believe that and the letter said he did not recall saying that and he disavows that statement. >> chris: is that enough for you? >> well, if in fact that is true, that would end that matter because he previously said in a book that the jewish lobby intimidates members of congress particularly the u.s. senate and makes us pushes us to make very bad decisions. if the second statement were true he said that the secretary of state's office is under the control of the israeli foreign ministers, those two together would show an edge and a view of the israeli u.s. relationship way out of

mainstream. so i will just take him at his word unless something new comes along. >> chris: senate democrats as you know say you are playing politics with national security. here is what president obama said. >> it is just unfortunate that this kind of politics intrudes at a time when i'm still prosiding over a war in afghanistan and i need a secretary of defense who is coordinating with our allies to make sure that our troops are getting the kind of strategy and mission that they deserve. >> chris: even if you ahaig toll be confirmed in a week when you come back from recess do you worry at all, senator, that he will be damaged and therefore less effective dealing with congress and dealing inside the pentagon? >> i would worry about a congress being jammed to support a nominee that the washington post said is to the left of the obama administration's foreign policy agenda. was on the fringe of the

senate. you are talking about a person whose voting record shows softness on iran and and antagonism on israel beyond belief. the fact that they wanted to cloture vote thursday was unreasonable. we voted senator kerry out in the same day because there was no don't veronica moser i have. controversy. we offered to hold the vote until after the break. that wasn't good enough. they wanted to force this issue. so i'm glad that we have got more time to look and i'm glad he answered my question about a very disturbing comment he allegedly made. so i think we doing our job to scrutinize i think one of the most unqualified radical choices for secretary of defense in a very long time. >> chris: well, let me ask you

a question about that. if he is so radical and unqualified if you get the information you are seeking on him and on benghazi and we will get to that in a moment, why wouldn't you still continue to try to block him? >> well, because i do believe the president has great deference. can we do better than this? i think so. the president has chosen a controversial nominee that refuses to sign letters supporting israel, refuses to designate the iranian revolutionary guard a terrorist organization. refused to sign a letter designating hezbollah as a terrorist organization. the list goes on and on but at the end of the day this is the president's decision and i give him great decision and i can't believe one democratic colleague is not upset by this choice enough to speak out. >> chris: one of the other things you won and using the nomination as leverage is to

get more information about benghazi. the president says that is all about politics. take a look at this. >> we have had more testimony and more paper are provided to congress than ever before and congress is sort of running out of things to ask. >> chris: question, tell me the single most important thing that after all of these months you still don't know about benghazi? >> it is pretty hard. let's start with after. we don't know who changed the talking points to take the references to al-qaeda out of the talking points given susan rice. we don't even know who the is survivors of the attack are so that congress can interview them. how could they suggest this was not a preplanned terrorist attack when the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs testified before congress just a week ago that they knew on the night of the attack it was a terrorist attack. there is some unanswered question hes. >> chris: let me ask you about one -- senator let me pick up

on one of them that i find frankly quite astonishing. what is the administration explanation for the fact that the fbi interviewed the is survivors, all of the americans who safely got out of benghazi after the attack months ago and they refuse to give the transcripts of the interviews to congress? what is their explanation for that? >> this is an ongoing criminal investigation is what they told me. we are going back to the law enforcement model where we are treating al-qaeda as sort of a mafia common criminal element rather than enemy combatants. here is what was really stunning. the fbi interviewed the survivors two days after the attack in germany and the cia never called the fbi for weeks wanting the results of the interview before they made their assessments. we are going back to the pre9/11 mentality of where we treat this as a law enforcement function and the fbi and cia never talked to each other which is dangerous. benghazi was system failure before, during and after.

>> chris: senate republicans also talking about holding up the nomination of john brennan the president's chief counter terrorism advisor to head the cia and rand paul your colleague who will be on after the break says one of the things he wants to be sure is that a president can't order a drone attack against an american citizen without a judicial review. is senator paul wrong? >> i think the worst thing in the world is to have the courts decide who to target in the war on terrorism. courts are not military commanders. the commander in chief has the right under law and authorization to use military force to designate the enemy. i think we do need drones to patrol our borders but i don't think you need a drone to attack an al-qaeda operative within the united states. i very believe we are at war and any american citizen mo aids al-qaeda should be treated

as a criminal combatant. drones are just a tactical weapon in the overall war. >> chris: when congress gets back from recess the week after this one, you are going to have just five days to try to deal with the sequester. the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that kick in on march 1. some republican leaders say if it comes down to a choice between sequester, cuts, $85 billion that are split evenly between the domestic side and military pentagon spending or the president's demand for an increase in taxes then let the sequester happen. are they wrong about that? >> i think so. i think we should in a bipartisan fashion stop see questions traiks before in the words of the dvd of defens secf defense detroys the pentagon. we can cut spending in the next decade without detroying the defense department if we

choose. the president promised in the campaign sequestration would not happen. now, he is allowing it to happen and raising taxes to pay for half of it and the other half comes from further defense cuts. we already cut $489 billion and taking money out of the farm bill. when the president says we cut spending by $2.5 trillion. that is absolutely a misleading statement. >> chris: why? >> well, because we haven't. we haven't done anything with sequestration yet. instead of cutting spending by $1.2 trillion he is now suggesting we raise taxes by $600 billion, cut the pentagon yet again and to go to the farm bill. that is the only areas that they are willing to cut. we haven't cut $2.5 trillion because the sequestration is now going be replaced by tax cuts and further defense spending and it is only 19% of the budget. but, you know he, sort of back to the benghazi thing and this administration being transparent and being honest with the american people. this president can say almost anything he wants with a few

notable exceptions and get away with it. we still have no idea what the president did when -- during the night of september 11th and when secretary clinton said she had a clear eyed view of the threats we faced in libya, the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs said they knew that night it was a terrorist attack and knew of the reporting coming out of libya from ambassador stevens says we cannot defend the consulate. she was not clear eyed. she was blind and deaf and the president of the united states never picked up the phone to call anybody in libya to help these four people under attack. the first ambassador killed in 30 years. they withheld information. i think they manipulated the evidence after the attack to create a political narrative rather than sharing with the public the truth about an al-qaeda attack that was preplanned and precoordinated. we will get to the bottom of this. >> chris: let me ask you one more question about the sequester before we let you go,

senator. you know if we go into the sequester the president is going to hammer republicans. the white house has already put out a list of the terrible things that are going to happen if a sequester kicks in. 70,000 children losing head start. 2100 fewer food inspections. small business will lose $900 million in loan guarantees and the president will say your party is forcing this to protect tax cuts for the wealth. >> all i can say is that the commander in chief came up with the adeof sequestration destroying the military and putting programs at risk. let's take obama care and put it on the table. you can make $86,000 a year in income and still get a government subsidy under obama care. people are leaving the private sector because the companies can't afford to offer obama care. if you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings

over the next decade let's look at obama care. let's don't detroy the military and cut blindly across the board. the president promised it wouldn't happen. he is the commander in chief. on his watch we will begin to unravel the finest military in the history of the world at a time we need it most. the iranians are watching us and we are allowing people to be destroyed and slaughtered in syria. i'm disappointed in our commander in chief. >> chris: senator graham thanks for joining us today. we will follow both the sequestration and the hagel nomination. up next, the voice of the tea party. senator rand paul who gave his own response to the president's is state of the union speech. i had enough of feeling embarrassed about my skin.

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>> chris: this week he took on

democrats and republicans in his tea party response to the president's state of the union address. here are with his critique of both parties is senator rand paul of kentucky. welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> good morning. >> chris: we will get to the president in a moment. let's start with the republicans. you say the sequester is fine, even the 40 plus billion dollars that the pentagon would take in military spending cuts. you just heard senator graham say no, it isn't fine that that would further jeopardize our national security. well, ideally we would have done the right thing and that is pass appropriations bills and reduce spending where we think is fit. the sequester is sort of a hammer. it was requested by the president. it was his idea. signed into law by him. so i think it is disengine with us for him to go back on it. to put it in perspective it is a trillion dollars that over the next ten years spending will go up $9 trillion. so even with the sequester

spending will still rise overall. so the sequester really is a reduction in the rate of growth of spending. it is not a real cut in spending. >> senator graham also says you are wrong that the last thing we need talking about drone strikes that the last thing we need is a judge second guessing the commander in chief. >> well, i think we may need to make the question a little more precise. what i'm asking is about drone strikes on americans on american soil. the president will not answer that he cannot do this. in fact, he seems to be asserting that he can do this. the law indicates that he can't. the cia is not supposed to assassinate people on american soil and the department of defense isn't allowed to act on american soil. the american law says they can't do this but the president all he will say is he doesn't intend to do this. that is sort of like him saying oh, i don't intend to override the second amendment but i might. he needs to say he absolutely

won't kill an american. >> chris: i thought you were objecting to drone strikes on american citizens on foreign soil as well. is that not true? >> i'm primarily asking and the primary question is americans on american soil. can the president kill them with a drone strike from this program. it is blatantly illegal and i would think most americans would basis poin want to have n court. if you live in america you ought to get your day in court before a hellfire missile comes down on your house. >> chris: why would we need a drone strike? the reason is because we don't have people on the ground. if we knew where an al-qaeda operative is, american or foreign on u.s. soil wouldn't we just go catch them? >> you would think. but here is brennan's response. he says the authorization to use force in 2001 in afghanistan has no geographical limit. when says that our first question is gosh, he is implying he could do it in america.

we sent him a written question. senator widen asked him can you kill americans on american soil. he won't answer answer. the president answered and say is i don't intend to do so. that is weak. i want him to say absolutely heel not kill americans on american soil. we do strikes overseas sometimes not even targeted to an individual. we see a caravan coming out of a place we think people don't like america and we strike a train of vehicles without even knowing who they are with the americans overseas i also do have some objection in the sense that i would try them for free son. al-awhaki would have been kistly convicted. his son was never tried. we killed his 16-year-old son and i don't think that that was appropriate. his son was never even accused of terrorism. the government won't even admit it was a a mistake or error or whatever it was and i think

that is wrong. you should get some protection for being an american citizen. where i agree with senator graham is if you have a grenade launcher and your shoulder and you are firing at americans you don't need due process. but if you are sitting in a cafe in paris or yemen it should be some process where a judge decides your guilt or a jury. >> chris: growing battle inside the gop. karl rove launched the conservative victory project to get involved in primaries to make sure that the party doesn't in the primary nominate somebody who can't win a general election. do you think that is a mistake? >> elections are free marketplace and everybody has a right to participate in primary elections. i would say primary elections need to not be selected by the party in my case and also in senator rubio's case the party chose someone else and in senator rubio's case chose someone who is now a democrat.

it wasn't a good choice. let's have healthy primaries. if people want to contribute on all sides let people make voluntary contributions and you will see how it goes. i think primaries you get a good candidate typically. >> chris: let's turn to the president's agenda. what is wrong with the idea that the president laid out in the state of the union that yes at this time particularly when we have a weak recovery we need to spend more money he calls it investment on education on infrastructure, on research, especially when mr. obama says if you make cuts in other places we won't add, his words, a dime to the deficit. >> yeah, he said that about 20 times in the last four years. meanwhile he added $6 trillion to the debt. i think it is really disingenuous. he said in the speech that he reduced the debt by $2 trillion. he added $6 trillion. that means because he didn't add $8 trillion he reduced it by $2 trillion. that is absurd. he listed 50 new programs and

said they will not cost you anything we will squeeze the money out of the rich. the problem is when tries to squeeze more none any ou moneyf the economy he is slowing it down. we slowed down in the fourth quarter. it is not because government spending it going down. government spending is is still going at pace. we petn spen spent more no theh quarter last career than in the nird quarter. we never had a real cut in spending in recent history. i will think he is flat out wrong. >> chris: but does it matter whether it is right or wrong and you know this doesn't have anything to do with politics, as a matter of practical politics isn't the president putting the republican party in the same spot he is successfully put you in during the campaign. he is defending the middle class and you guys are protecting tax breaks for the wealthy. >> right. and that is empty and false rhetoric. it is our job to explain to the american people that big government doesn't help the poor. big government creates massive

debt which causes your price to rise. your gas price going up if you make $20,000 a year and have two kids you are poor and when the gas prices go from $3.20 to $3.0 that is president obama doing that with big government and his debt. if you are a senior citizen trying to save money and you get no cost of living increase that is president obama doing that to your prices because his massive debt causes prices to rise. >> chris: let's turn to immigration. you talked about that in your official response on tuesday. here is what you said. we must be the party who sees immigrants as assets not liabilities. we must be the party that says if you want to work, if you want to be an american, we welcome you. question, do you support the bipartisan gang of eight in the senate which put together kind of a blueprint, outline for immigration reform that says that they would allow the 11 million illegals to stay here, give them some little status, not a path to

citizenship but some legal status right away and once you get enforcement of the borders then a path to citizenship? >> i do support immigration reform. i do support the concept of telling the 11 million people here that if you want to work and you don't want to be on welfare we are willing to find a place for you in america. as far as the bipartisan proprosal i will support it on one condition and that is that we have a report that says the boarder is being secured but that report comes back and is voted on in congress. this is my idea that i have been promoting and it will be an amendment for a substitute for their bill is that each year over a five or six year period we have to have a report by an investigator general from the gao that comes back and says the boarder is secure. conservatives like my myself have been for is step wise immigration reform if the border is secure. i think a promise from president obama is an empty promise and i think we need to

trust and verify. my report would have an amendment for a report that congress has to vote on that says the border is secure. >> chris: there is a white house draft of a comprehensive immigration plan that started circulating this weekend which would allow the 11 million a path to citizenship without any linkage to border enforcement. >> this is the president torpedoing his own plan and shows me that he is really not sirius. there are many people who think democrats bring up the ideas as wedge issues. they really don't want to pass them because then they don't have the republicans to blame. they put something up there that is untenable. i have come a long way forward on the issue. a conservative senator. someone who strongly believes in border security first i'm willing to come towards them and look at a come promichigan. when they say my way or the highway and if congress doesn't ask i will put it on the desk and say pass it now that is no

way to get it done. then he will blame it on us. seems to me to show that really the president really doesn't want immigration reform. >> chris: finally let's talk about 2016. how serious are you about running for -- you know what i'm going to ask. how serious are you about running for president and would it be to make a point as your father did in his presidential runs or are would it be to win? >> i would absolutely not run unless it were to win. you know, points have been made and we will continue to make points but i think the country really is ready for the narrative coming, libertarian republican narrative because we have been losing as a national authority. we are doing fine in congressional seats but becoming less and less of a national party because we don't win on the west coast. we don't win in new england. we struggled all around the great lakes. i think people want a party that is a little less aggressive on foreign policy, still believes in the strong national defense but less aggressive. they want the young people want politicians who don't want to

put them in jail for 20 years for a nonviolent drug possession charge. so they want a little bit different face. i think people want a little different face on immigration frankly. they don't want somebody who wants to round people up and put them in camps and send them back to mexico. they don't gave them welfare either. i don't. >> chris: senator paul, you sound like you are running. >> we won't make a decision until 2014. i do want the party to become a national party again and not lose sight of how we grow as a party. we will continue in that vein for a couple of years and then decide. >> chris: thanks for coming in. always good to talk with you. >> thank you. >> chris: we wanted to speak with a white house official today about the president's agenda for the second term. but while new chief of staff dennis mcdonough sat down with the other three sunday shows the white house turned down a request for him to answer our questions and explain the president's policies to all of you. we'll keep trying.

up next, divisions within the gop as one of our panelists angers the tea party base.

♪ he is also up there with that stupid little third grade whiteboard of his with his fourth grade writing style talking about how they committed $30 million to tea party candidates. bring on the little whiteboard. we are ready. >> conservative radio talk show host mark levin mildly upset with karl rove's new plan to vet republican candidates in future primaries. time for the sunday group. the aforementioned without former senior advisor karl rove. bob woodward from the washington post and author of the book the price of politics. and kimberly strassel of the "wall street journal" and fox news political analyst juan

williams. as we mentioned, karl has helped launch the conservative victory project which is going to make an effort in the primaries in 2014 to make sure that the republican voters in those primaries elect people who are going to win in the general elections. that has made the tea party and people who are supporting that part of the republican party very upset. karl, your reaction? >> my personal favorite was when mark levin referred to me as queen for a day. i'm not certain what he was talking about there. >> chris: i don't think it was a compliment. >> i don't think so either. let's be clear. we did spend $30 million on behalf of tea party candidates. we are the largest outside group supporting rand paul, $2.9 million. marco rubio rubes. i gave money very early. >> chris: the tea party candidates are saying you are trying to beat them. >> some people associated with

the tea party almost. todd akin was not a tea party candidate. >> chris: the guy who said legitimate rape and the missouri -- >> right. our object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections who are undisciplined, can't raise money and aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign because this money is too difficult to be raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in the general election. >> chris: the tea party things you are going after them. >> some elements. >> chris: they say there were plenty of bad establishment candidates in north dakota, and virginia and wisconsin and a lot the o blew chances in race. >> i think that is right. take the case of indiana where we had a candidate, richard murdoch who lost a general election in a state comfortably won by mitt romney and reelected republicans up and down the ballot. two people poncible. richard murdoch who ran and

undisciplined case who said if a woman is raped it is god's will. he was registered to vote at a state he hadn't own since 1973. last again home for a lincoln day dinner in the 1980s. top leaders in the state never met him and he rarely went home. comes a point at which even an accomplished statesman will cause a loss of an election if they don't step aside and allow a robust normal primary to emerge. >> chris: bob, what does is say about the republican party when you have karl rove stepping in to say we have to police who the republican primary voters. it is part of the process, i'm not saying there is anything wrong with it and let me just finish the question and when you have marco rubio who is conservative and a tea party favorite giving the republican response and the tea party thinks they have to somebody else give a response to the response? >> my last book is going to be

called some people never go away and karl is going to get his own chapter because he never goes away. >> i'm sorry. >> maybe two chapters because you never know what the next bounce will be with you. but what is interesting is the focus on money. i think the problem in the republican party is really not money. i think they have got lots of it. i think it is theory of the case. why are we here. what is our message. how do connect to the real world. and this idea about $30 million here or we are going to do that is the wrong response. >> he is right. i used the $30 million to prove that we are protea party. a lot of this is just simply examining the candidates and looking at their record and doing the kind of research on ourselves that the other side is already going to be doing and trying to have discussions as to how long are the prospective candidates.

there was a reason why todd akin won the primary. he won because harry reid went in and spent $2 million attacking him as a conservative during the republican primary. he said himself he has never voted for a tax increase. always been prolife. even supported a balanced budget amendment too conservative for missouri. the object was help nominate the weakest republican candidate possible to have is a chance. >> you are going to set your isself up as a bureau vetting the candidates. i mean -- >> no, no, no. >> the whole theory of republicanism is to let the local state or district decide. >> i think rand paul had it right. everybody has a chance. we believe in markets. let people do go in and partis it pate. the more people who participate the better off we are. the more we examine the quality of the candidates from top to bottom the more likely we end up with fewer kristine o'donnells and more rand pauls. >> chris: what do you make of the republican party decision to block temporarily but to block the nomination of a defense secretary for the first

time in our history? >> why odd. they? the end he will probably be confirmed. this is an opportunity the president thought in nominating chuck hagel he would put this guy out there and rub republicans noses a little bit in that he had chose and gop guy who believed in his philosophy. the nomination hearing was a disaster and he came across look fairly incompetent. so many questions raised about his history. the gop says let's delay this a little longer and keep the headlines on the white house. he will probably come back and get confirmed at the end of the day and in the meantime the president has to deal with the issue for a bit longer. >> chris: juan, what about the republican decision and their justification particularly on usingzi saying they are using this as leverage to get information that the white house is refusing to give them? >> the question is what information they think is out there that hasn't been already

acquired. are the argument coming from the white house is you keep changing. initially it was wait a is second. is his opposition to the surge in iraq. senator graham said to you there was new information in a speech. you know, or notes about a speech. so what you get is that we have a weak period in which i think you have -- a week period in which you have conservative pom fixes on the hill hoping something more might come out but appearing petty because as you pointed out, chris, this is unprecedentd that you would block the defense secretary and allows the white house to say this is creating instability. we have 66,000 troops still on the ground in afghanistan and we need a defense secretary. secretary panetta is having to go over to bruce sell bru is ssels this week. they don't have the votes to

block. >> chris: well, tortion block. >> it they had the votes to essentially have a filibuster but they said they are not going to filibuster. but they don't have the votes at the end of next week to block hagel. >> chris: you talk about the information that you want and you say they are moving the goal post if you will. bob, as somebody who knows a little bit about coverups, are you a little surprised about the fact that we still don't know what the president was doing on the night of september 11th, we still don't know who he called, what he did? that he only talked to the pentagon. the defense secretary ones. that he never called anybody in libya. and are you also surprised i'm not saying i'm -- i must say i'm astonished at the idea national administration has refused to give congress the fbi interviews with the survivors of benghazi. >> those are good questions. there are always unanswered questions in something like this but the hagel confirmation is not the forum to get that kind of information. i think there is another dimension here and that is what

are democratic senators really thinking about the hagel nomination? i understand some of them have actually called the white house and said is hagel going to withdraw? would he consider withdrawing? the answer is an emphatic no but member johner erlicmman nixon's aide used to talk about twisting slowly in the wind and the factor here is time. and there is this twisting in the wind aura to all of this and i wonder whether the democrats are kind of looking and asking what really is the fundamental question here, is he the best person to be secretary of defense? >> chris: we have to take a break here. we we come back, the fight over spending comes down to the wire with the sequester deadline less than two weeks away. ♪ if loving you is wrong

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everyone should be clear that sequestration is a republican policy and it is a bad policy. >> the sequester was the president's idea. his party needs to follow through on their plans to replace it. >> chris: house speaker john boehner and democratic whip sten any hoyer. still no closer to a deal to avoid spending cuts on march. we are back now with the panel. bob as the man who literally wrote the book about the budget battle. put this who rest. whose idea was the equestions and did you think we would getr to the point? >> it was the white house and lu and neighbors who went to

harry reid and say this is the solution. but everyone has their fingerprints on this. and it is everyone's -- it is the policy and it is law. what is important about it is, travesty.verning trace the idea that you are going to go around and in random ways just cut things. it would be like a family that has to cut the budget saying let's cut the medicine that keeps the children alive. it's stupid. >> chris: kim, having said that it's stupid what are the chances we are actually going to reach march 1 and the sequester, the $85 billion in automatic cuts will kick in and if it does and we begin to see marks reacting and stuff how does it play out with the president insisting there have to be tax hikes on the rich and the republicans saying no, it all needs to come out of spending cuts? >> i think it is likely that we do hit that day and that it comes and the reason why is because the republicans have been asking the white house to come up with some sort of

alternative in which you actually prioritize and maybe do something on entitlements. they won't do that. >> chris: the senate democrats came up with a plan. >> tax hikes. >> partly cuts but tax hikes. half and half. >> the republicans said we did tax hikes a month ago. now, is time you can tax everybody 100% of their income at the higher end and it is not going to deal with this. we have so have the main focus on the spending problem. the question is how the white house decides to implement this and whether or not they will play really big games jess the temptation for the white house is going to be there is some latitude in how to put the cuts into effect and do them in a way that doesn't hurt as much. their temptation is to make it as painful as possible. school districts do that always cut the fine arts programs or the school busing to make the parents want to cough up the money. >> chris: the white house put out thousands of kids thrown

out of head start. we won't have food safety inspectors. all kinds of dire things. small business won't get any kind of loan guarantees. they are saying we will make it hurt. >> oh, yeah, and i think the news media will play into that at everly level. the big ticket here is you are cutting jobs and millions of jobs around the country and you are damaging the economy. so stupid as bob said is a good word for it. it is taking a hatchet hatchete budget when the economy is in a fragile state. the president says look back to the negotiations he was having with speaker boehner. he says a lot of the proposals are still on the table. let's kick the dan down the road a little farther and avoid the sequestration. >> we had a two month delay. >> that is is the way we govern now in washington. one crisis to another. when you come up against the debt ceiling and the fiscal

cliff usually we put it off. but i think this is one that is going to cause tremendous damage and the question is with the congress gone for a week when do they have time to negotiate. >> $85 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget. >> a small percentage but if it affects you. >> and this is going to hurt the economy? >> if you lose your job i think it hurts you don't you think? >> fundamentally the debt that we have at the moment is the bigger problem for the economy and job creation in the private sector. >> chris: let me binge karl in to talk about the sequester and look at the president's state of the union speech and agenda he laid out and what does that tell us about what he wants to do in his second term? >> spend a lot of money and pursue a lot of liberal social policies and says he is out of touch with the reality of where the country is. the democrats said we don't have a spending problem. 83% of the american people say we have a pending problem. i agree with kim. $85 billion cut is a 2.4% cut

roughly out of this year's budget. it is a chunk. but a lot of families have had to cut deeper and it is an $85 billion cut in government spending when we have a $16 trillion economy. the administration is right to say there will be some problems with across-the-board hair cuts. that is why the republicans in the house have been talking about in the -- in the continuing resolution to fund the government that is going to follow within a matter of a couple of days including flexibility for the president and the administration to move money around between accounts to accounts. you have a ship building account at dod that is says spend out for the next five years. allow them to take the money and put it into maintenance and operation to keep the fitness of current services. let's be honest about this. a bad idea fifthed upon us by the president of the united states who has had 18 months to lead the country in a way that we could make smart cuts and not stupid cuts. we added $600 billion in tax refs in january.

the president lan last year television ads saying for every dollar in new revenues we out to have $2.50 in spenting cuts and now where are we -- >> the president's sequester -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> no, no, no. >> in the white house -- >> let's be clear. >> in -- >> and they really don't want to talk about the origins this of sequester now. but the republicans definitely have a role in this. and i think we are missing this is where you to look at the trees. in the mandated cuts let's take the national institute of health. 5% cuts. this is one of the crown jewels of american science. what has -- a the nih has done in these grants and a 5% cut is going to be devastating to them. >> chris: but couldn't you do $85 in cuts that wouldn't be

devastating. >> but it is mandated in law and the white house has said you -- >> chris: that is the point of the house republicans. they are saying make smart cuts, not stupid cuts. >> the point i was trying to make before. most republicans in the house including the speaker voted for this. >> republicans are now for the sequester because they have no trust in the president's willingness to cut spending at all. he had 18 months to lead us and he hasn't. the fact of the matter is that we have tools to avoid the kind of thing we are talking about if congress will sit down and the perhaps ar republican repue willing to grant the democratic president the flexibility to make the cuts in the way he determines and he desires. >> there is movement behind the scenes on this. i think some of the democrats have gone to the white house and said now wait a minute, can we delay this sequester for one year and that makes sense. granted it is another kicking of the can.

>> republicans won't go for that. >> they might. >> no. >> and i think -- wait a minute, you have got a situation where this is so idiotic and juan is right. this is about jobs. it is about the state of the economy. >> it is about spending and refusing to be -- >> chris: i'm glad we cleard that up. thank you, panel. but don't forget to check out panel plus where our panel will pick right up with this discussion on our website "fox news sunday" .com. we will post the video before noon eastern time. and make sure to follow us on twitter @ fox news sunday. up next, our power player of the week. hi. hi. i'm here to pick up some cacti. it should be under stephens. the verizon share everything plan for small business. get a shareable pool of data... got enough joshua trees? ... on up to 25 devices. so you can spend less time... yea, the golden barrels... managing wireless costs and technology and more time driving your business potential. looks like we're going to need to order more agaves... ah! oh! ow!

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>>. >> chris: there have been 1,946 senators since congress started in 1789. one of fun facts we learned from our power player of the week. >> i tell people i have a front row seat for the show in washington. >> he is the senate historian keeping track of everything it does. >> the senate does a lot of business by precedent. what it it has done before.

we have very few rules in the senate but thousands of precedent presidents. >> the staff wanted to know what happened to the andrew johnson during the trial of bill clinton. >> as any member. house presented a case on the floor of senate. >> his answer was no. >> he should be are removed from office. >> so congressmen had to make the case against clinton. recently senators have been asking a lot of questions about the filibuster. >> they recognize the senate would be different institution and they will say it look just like the house of representatives which is something they don't want. >> chris: it's not a compliment. >> we have files on filibusters and files on every person who has served in the senate. >> ritchie took us to the archives of his office picking a

file at random. edward bartlett the first senator froms. >> 35,000 photos and cartoons of the senate over the centuries. >> in is a picture of the senators in the 1880s, all men. >> there is wonderful photo op of a senate softball game with a young jack kennedy as a catcher. when they were mistaking a movie about howard hughes, they wanted to match the color of the drapes and also help out reporters. >> the day of the state of the union we called it a ready day because we were on the phone so much calling with questions to try to put something into historical context. >> the office opened back in 1975. >> the legislature was asking the president to make his public. >> he joined the staff a year

later and became senate historian in 2009. >> i'm in an institution where henry clay and daniel webster, their desks are still there. >> chris: 45 senators are serving their first terms in a period of dramatic turnover he is gratified to be part of the body's ins tools institutional memory. >> my main objective is for people to have accurate information to base their decisions on. anything i can provide them, i get great satisfaction out of. >> chris: i asked ritchie what are the biggest changes in the senate. he said jet travel to make it easier to commute the televising of senate and lots more security. that is it for today. have a great week. we'll see you next fox news sunday.